


But a shadow

by merionettes (acchikocchi)



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen, Non-Graphic Violence, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:49:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25051957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acchikocchi/pseuds/merionettes
Summary: Felix isn't sleeping well.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 10
Kudos: 128





	But a shadow

**Author's Note:**

> content warning for disturbing imagery of violence and death – not overly graphic because i’m a huge weenie but if you are sensitive to such things please proceed with care.

Felix is in a canyon of fire. Molten starbursts sear overhead, geysers of liquid flame erupt at his feet. The air is thick with ash and the smell of roasted flesh. He knows the enemy are closing in. 

Faceless bodies, lurching suits of armor with shadowed hollows for eyes. He cuts them all down. Dodge, parry, lunge, thrust, sweep. His sword runs black with blood. Sweat trickles down his neck. His lips are cracked, stinging. He tastes salt. 

He's alone. He knows, somehow, not to look back. Sylvain, Bernadetta, Ingrid, Annette— Maybe they're still fighting. He can't turn around to see; he has to keep pressing forward. The battle won't end unless he does. 

He takes the head off an axe wielder with one liquid stroke. It flies through the air and strikes the rock of the canyon wall, splattering like a melon.

A shadow looms through the flames. There he is: the final adversary. Felix knows there is no path forward that does not go through him. They must face each other. His mouth curls up, grip firm on his sword. The sword iron's heat sears through the wrappings of the hilt and the leather of Felix's gloves.

The enemy approaches through the flames. Something's not right about the way he moves. Something about the balance. Maybe he's injured. Felix shifts into a ready crouch. He ignores the blast of heat scorching the hairs on the back of his neck. The enemy closes in as the canyon echoes with the _clank, clank, clank_ of rusted armor. He's not moving right because—because—

A chunk of molten rock flames overhead, scattering sparks and casting a violent light on the enemy below. Felix's gorge lurches into his throat.

The thing is—it shouldn't be moving. There shouldn't be enough of it left to move. It's the crude shape of a body, chunks of charred flesh held together with bare tendons. Oozing, raw, a slick red gleam. 

It barely has a face. One eye bulges from its socket, crimson-veined. The other socket is gouged hollow. The rest of the face is in unidentifiable shreds. But Felix knows it. He would know it anywhere.

What used to be its mouth twists in a stomach-heaving shape. It's smiling.

"Hey, little brother," Glenn says. "I'm back." 

* * *

Felix wakes with the scream trapped in his throat. His heart is hammering. He can't move. He gulps for air, sweat-soaked nightclothes cold and clammy. His room at the monastery is pitch black. The afterimage of flames pulses against the shadows. His fingers scrabble at the sheets.

Slowly, the jackrabbit pounding of his heart slows. He inhales deep, counts to four, lets it out. In, four, out. His arm, trembling, moves. He pushes himself upright. His throat is bone dry.

After a while, he forces himself to move his legs out from under the blanket. When the soles of his feet touch the cold floor, he fights down the jump. He stands up and lights a candle.

He doesn't go back to sleep.

* * *

He knows, without checking the mirror, that he looks awful. Even so—"Wow," Sylvain says. "Felix, buddy. Rough night?"

Felix hunches over his breakfast plate. He doesn't speak.

"Aww, come on, no need to be so cold, I'm not saying it _had_ to be something sketchy—though, I mean—"

Felix silently shovels porridge into his mouth. After a couple minutes of prodding, Sylvain gives up and turns to Hilda, on his other side. 

"Felix," Ingrid says in a low voice. "Are you feeling all right?"

He rests his spoon on the rim of the bowl. "Fine." Ingrid doesn't look convinced.

It's not the first time he's carried out his duties on little sleep. It won't be the last. This is another kind of training. He goes from the dining hall to the training yard to the classroom, feet carrying him along well-worn paths. Today's lecture is on reactions between black and white magic. He forces his eyes wide, clenches his jaw over every yawn. 

He usually trains on his own after supper. It's been a long time since he's wanted to skip it. Today he'll stick to the basic forms. Thrust, three sets of twenty repetitions, break. Lunge, three sets of twenty repetitions, break. Guard, three sets of twenty repetitions, and he's free. Caspar and Raphael are working out across the yard. Felix keeps his movements measured and complete as he wipes his face, cleans and racks the training sword, walks from the yard to the baths.

He falls into bed awaiting relief. He's asleep within minutes.

* * *

He was wrong. His comrades aren't behind him; they're ahead. He has to catch up, quickly, or they'll be cut off from each other by the enemy's approach. He's already so far behind that he can't see the enemy, although he can hear the clash of steel and iron far off.

He knows he needs to hurry, but he can't seem to speed up beyond a brisk walk. He tells his legs to move, faster. There's a splash of color ahead, purple against the rusty reds and browns. It's several moments before his feet bring him close enough to see.

Bernadetta lies flung against a rock, arms splayed wide. She's staring up at the sky. Her chest is caved in.

A few meters on is Ingrid, crumpled in a heap of blood and leather. Even in death her lance is in hand. Her other arm has been sheared off at the elbow.

Annette looks perfect; she could be resting, but for the inhuman stillness of her face. For a moment Felix is hypnotized. Finally he sees it: the patch on her side where her black robes are soaked through.

Felix's heart rises in his throat, pulse beating harder and harder. His legs move faster now. Not fast enough.

Dark blood crusts Sylvain's face, rendering it unrecognizable. There's no mistaking him, though. Not with the hair. Not with the Lance. He's propped against the wall of the canyon, prepared to the last to hold off an attack. As Felix watches, his head tips forward and droops from his neck.

Felix stands over him. His hands are shaking. Sylvain doesn't move. Sylvain doesn't breathe.

His feet move. He's not ready to go. He tries to turn back; his body doesn't obey. It carries him forward, away from the dead, away from Sylvain.

The wave appears. This part is familiar. He cuts through them by rote—when to duck, when to swing. There it is, the thing that can't be Glenn, coming through the flames. When it smiles, Felix is ready.

He lunges for its head. It blocks him with its sword—Glenn's sword, rusted, blackened—and shoves Felix's blade down with enough force that he staggers backward, struggling to keep his balance. He throws himself forward again, the rhythm of strike, parry, riposte nauseatingly familiar. Just like when they used to spar. That horrible leer is still stretching the remnants of its face. "Oh, Felix," it says. "Did you miss me?"

Every day, a cavity where his heart was yanked out of his chest, leaving behind broken ribs and punctured lungs. Every day, throat scorched simply to breathe.

"You knew them," he says, forcing it through gritted teeth. "Why did you do it."

The thing that looks like Glenn laughs. "Me? Little brother, that was _you._ "

Felix looks down at his hands. His claws are red with blood.

* * * 

He holds his head in his hands for long minutes after he wakes up, pressing tight against his temples, squeezing the memory away. It doesn't work.

Ingrid's eyes bore into him for the entirety of breakfast. Felix ignores her. It works until they round the corner from the dining hall to the academy classrooms and his eyes land on a head of flyaway purple hair.

Felix flinches, hard. Bernadetta gives a small and stifled _eep_. 

" _What_ —" Ingrid begins and Sylvain says over her, "—are you working on, Bernadetta? Got the latest cha—" 

" _Who's Bernadetta_ ," Bernadetta yelps, and scuttles away like a beetle. Felix sees spots in front of his eyes.

Hands-on practicum in the morning, physical training in the afternoon. They're split into pairs, two on two: Felix and Ingrid versus Petra and Sylvain. Felix usually treats these exercises as two-on-one solo bouts. Today, he lets Ingrid engage Petra and focuses on Sylvain. 

Sylvain almost always manages to wait out Felix into making the first move. When he doesn't Felix gets the sense it's because Sylvain is humoring him. He doesn't have the patience to dally today. He lunges, going for the weak spot on Sylvain's left. Sylvain gets the practice lance up and deflects the downward sweep of Felix's sword. They trade blows, wooden blades clacking, so familiar with each other's movements that each stroke is read and blocked, smooth as clockwork. Out of the corner of his eye, Felix can see Petra going for Ingrid's knees with a throaty yell, Ingrid holding her off with her own lance and throwing her to the ground. Sylvain's face is tight with concentration. Up close, his hair is damp, a darker red.

Sylvain sweeps. Felix jumps. Felix jabs. Sylvain blocks. Twists out of the stance, bringing the lance around on the back swing, so Felix ducks under and comes up with his sword headed for Sylvain's throat, which Sylvain's already moving to counter, muscling the blade aside with the shaft of the lance then letting momentum swing it onward on course for Felix's middle, which Felix will then dodge as the force of his next thrust pulls him forward out of the way, except his sword arm comes up a fraction too late and the butt of the lance drives straight into Felix's gut.

Felix catches sight of Sylvain's eyes going wide in the split second before he doubles over, heaving. Sylvain drops his lance. "Shit, Felix? You okay?"

It's all he gets out before Ingrid slams into him like a ten-ton ballista. They go tumbling back, Sylvain grappling to wrest her lance out of its arc toward his face. It's enough warning for Felix to drop and roll, so Petra comes down hard where he was standing a second before. The roll almost leaves the contents of breakfast on the training yard ground. He forces the nausea down, gets his grip back and pulls his sword up into position. Within seconds Sylvain is disarmed, and Felix and Ingrid finish Petra off in tandem.

Most of the yard was too busy with their own matches to have seen what happened. Even Ingrid seems to have missed it; she just has a sixth sense for when Sylvain's guard is down. Not so lucky with their teacher. She's watching him silently from across the grounds. Felix ignores her.

Sylvain catches his arm. "Hey. Felix." 

"It's just a bruise," Felix says. "I'm fine."

Sylvain still hasn't let go. "You're not staying out here training all night, are you? You getting enough—"

Felix wrenches his arm away. "I said, I'm fine."

He can feel Sylvain's eyes on his back of his neck all the way out of the training yard.

* * *

This time he doesn't linger as he passes their bodies, cracked and splayed against the rock. A quick glance, dispassionate, registering their presence and moving on. Until the last one. His gaze is trapped; he can't move on. He hears the pounding of his own heart, a faint murmur.

"…lix.

It's Sylvain. 

He's on his knees in an instant. His hands hover by his side, useless. They won't do what he tells them. They won't touch.

"Fe…l…"

He's trying to speak. His tongue won't move. No sound emerges from his mouth.

Crusted shut, Sylvain's left eye pries itself open. It's bloodshot, unfocused. Even so, that familiar warm brown. Felix's chest feels like it's been crushed. Sylvain's lips part. A dry sound emerges. Felix can't make out the words. He leans forward.

Sylvain whispers, "End… it."

No. He won't. He can't.

His fingers are already closing around the knife.

The pupil of Sylvain's good eye dilates, contracts, searching for a point of focus. It catches on Felix, almost, and loses him again. But it must have been enough. The corner of Sylvain's bloody lips inches upward in a curve. A smile.

"Th'nks…y'r…"

The knife flashes. Wet spatters Felix's face.

* * *

It takes four tries before he can light the candle, hands shaking. He washes his face until the skin is raw.

* * *

His eyes feel like sandpaper. It's the third day. Training. Just more training.

His feet take him to the dining hall, the training yard. No sparring today, just exercises for strength and conditioning. Then to lecture.

The classroom is warm and close. The low, affectless monotone of their teacher's voice soothes the raw nerves of his brain. A welcoming blankness beckons. He won't dream there.

"— _lix._ " 

There's his name again. Just like—what was it?

Above him: "Felix."

He opens his eyes. It feels like they're weighed down with black steel anvils.

Their teacher is standing over his desk. Beyond her, his classmates are looking on with varying degrees of concern. 

"Sorry," he mutters. Croaks. 

"That was Chapter 3 of Maerhus on tactics. Please submit a summary to me by the end of this week, so I can be sure you've covered it. This information will be critical to you some day."

She always speaks like that. No hypotheticals, only certainties. He gives a short nod.

He knuckles through the rest of lecture, pure effort. After thirty minutes they're finally let free. Felix trudges out to the courtyard and takes a deep breath of cold spring air. It rouses, barely, his deadened brain. Where to go now? He balks at the thought of returning to the dormitory.

"Hey. Felix." Sylvain, beside him from out of nowhere. The voice raises hairs on his nape. "We're—"

"—on for stable duty," Felix says, remembering as the words come to his mouth. "Right." He turns for the stables, just a little slow.

Sylvain's hand on his shoulder stops him. With effort, he keeps from shrugging it off. Sylvain's brown eyes—clear, whole—search his face. He's not smiling, for once.

"I can handle it today," Sylvain says. "You should catch up on the reading."

"It's fine."

"You know I do this all the time at home. It's no big deal, c'mon." 

"It's _fine._ "

After seventeen years, Sylvain knows when Felix won't give ground. Felix follows him to the stables and grabs the shovel before Sylvain can get to it.

Sylvain is fast and efficient, filling feedbags, hauling fresh water, talking soothingly to each horse while Felix shovels muck and rakes out the stalls. Felix's fingers are red with cold. He finds himself leaning on the rake for just a moment's rest.

By the time he's done, Sylvain has already started currying the horses. "One of the combs is missing," Sylvain says. "Guess only one person can groom at a time."

This is a trick. "I'm doing my share."

"Sure," Sylvain says. "Take a seat until it's your turn."

Felix should argue. It's not like him not to put up a fight. He hunches down against the stable wall, shielded from the raw spring breeze, and watches Sylvain brush Alois' bay gelding in a smooth, even rhythm. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke…

He wakes to a woollen cloak draped over his shoulders. It smells like hay.

* * *

Instead of preparing for bed, he lights a candle and sits at his desk, quill in hand and Maerhus open before him. Dormitory-issue furniture is spartan at best, which Felix approves of; after a day of hard training, the wooden chair is punishing. Good. 

Felix doesn't like studying. He doesn't like tactical theory (useless in the field) and he doesn't like note-taking (tedious). It's something to do now. He reads the first paragraph, laboriously, and reads it again. Scratches down a line. Another paragraph. The letters balloon and swim before his eyes. His head is nodding. He gets up and splashes his face with cold water from the basin. Three pages out of fifteen. He picks up the quill.

* * *

His gloves are wet with Sylvain's blood. He strips them off and leaves them where they fall. Once more, the wave of foes engage. He plows through the bodies, barely cognizant of his opponents. One of them opens a gash in his side. He doesn't feel it. He reaches his prize, the Glenn simulacrum, waiting for him with ragged lips and upraised sword. He charges it with a howl, wild and maddened, and thrusts his lance at the thing's belly. His lance?

The thing catches the lance above the point and flips it out of Felix's hands, casually, with a beast's strength. The shaft snaps in two and the thing tosses the pieces aside. Felix scrambles for the head, ready to use it as a short spear. He gets to it just ahead of the downward sweep of Glenn's sword, which clangs against the rock behind him. 

He dodges another hit. The spear point draws a jagged gash along its arm, raising a trickle of dark, glistening ooze. Then the arm just—falls off, hitting the ground with a dead _thump_.

The thing tsks at him. "Really, your highness—"

" _Don't call me that_ ," Felix seethes, throat raw. He's not Dimitri. He isn't.

"How could anyone possibly tell you apart?" it says. "Following me around, two peas in a pod. Kits of the same litter."

Scalding tears prick his eyes. "No. We're not. I wouldn't."

"Oh, little brother," Glenn says. "I know you better than anyone. You've always been a beast."

* * *

His right arm is numb where his head fell on it and rested. His neck, back, shoulders scream. 

Sylvain doesn't say anything when Felix takes his seat in the dining hall. Instead he moves a few inches up the bench and closes the space between them, so his arm is pressed against Felix's, so if Felix were to slump, which he doesn't, Sylvain's warm, solid weight would hold him up.

His head is so heavy. He can barely hold it upright. His eyelids droop.

Voices nearby. Sylvain's light tones, parrying. His own name, then Sylvain again, as always the center of attention. 

The cathedral bell tolls. Time for class. He stumbles getting up from the bench. Sylvain's got a hand under his elbow almost before it happens. "Easy."

He should tell off Sylvain for making a fuss. It's not worth the effort.

One on one today, their teacher pairing them off. Sylvain versus Dedue. Ingrid versus Ashe. Felix versus Dimitri.

If Sylvain is always second to move, Dimitri is always first. At least if you're equals. He goes on the attack with a standard opening lunge, a courtly invitation. False as ever. Felix's lip curls. He obliges. There's only one thing he ever wants when he's fighting Dimitri: to make him rip the mask off, fight like his life depends upon it, show his bloody tusks. Without that, there's no point in victory.

The point of Dimitri's lance comes swinging toward him and he has to duck and roll. He's being pushed backward, steady and sure, working to keep his guard up. His body isn't moving like he wants it to. Like he's trained it to. Drilling it every day, rain or snow or ice, to be the finest weapon it can be, better than anyone or anything. Better than the beast. 

He lunges and overbalances. Stumbles forward.

"Felix," Dimitri says, brow furrowed. The tip of his lance goes down, just slightly. "Are you feeling all right?"

Annette and Bernadetta empty-eyed. Ingrid crumpled on the ground. Sylvain's blood spattering his face. The roasted remnants that used to be Glenn saying _Little brother_.

The hilt of his sword slams into Dimitri's throat. Dimitri goes down, choking. Felix is on him in a heartbeat, driving the hilt down toward his face. Dimitri gets his arms up in time. He's strong, or Felix is careless. The sword goes flying. No matter. Felix has his fists. He lands a hit on Dimitri's chin. Another one. Another—no, blocked. Dimitri isn't even trying to fight back, just keep Felix off. Disgusting, dishonest, like he doesn't—hasn't— Felix gets a glimpse of Annette's face, horrified and tearstained. Not at all like the still mask in the canyon. When Dimitri killed them. No, when Felix—

"Felix— _Felix!_ "

Sylvain's voice, and probably Sylvain's hands on his arms, struggling for purchase. Felix wrenches free. He lunges for Dimitri again and is brought up short by a grip on his collar, hair catching with an eyewatering sting, tenuous but enough to halt his momentum. He gives a furious yank free and his head collides with someone's elbow. For a moment he sees stars—a moment long enough for Sylvain and Ingrid to grasp him around the waist and arms, wrestle him back from his target. He fights them every inch of the way, spitting, yelling, wordless— 

A familiar monotone: "Felix. Yield."

The last thing he sees is his teacher with her hands upraised, magic pulsing white between them.

* * *

Felix wakes up in the dark.

He's lying in an unfamiliar bed. Slowly, the room around him come into focus: ghostly, white-winged shapes. He's in the infirmary.

His head aches. His eyes are dry. 

"There you are."

Sylvain was so still he'd melted into the shadows. Felix hadn't even seen him. Now he stirs, a dark blur in the grey, and leans forward, until Felix can make out lines of his face.

His voice is hushed. "How are you feeling?"

Felix doesn't answer, for a minute. The last thing he remembers is their professor's raised hands, Sylvain's contorted face.

He didn't dream.

His voice comes out a rasp. "Tired."

Sylvain laughs, quiet. "No shit." The sound of liquid trickling from beaker to chalice. Sylvain's voice is closer when he says, "Here. Drink this."

It doesn't smell like water. When Felix doesn't follow through, Sylvain says, "Manuela left it for you. Said to take it when you wake up."

He steels himself and downs it in one gulp. It's just as foul as he expected. Sylvain has a tumbler of water waiting when he coughs despite his best efforts.

He's rewarded. Within seconds the headache recedes. Knots he hadn't registered as tense uncoil. His shoulders fall.

"Better?"

Felix's chin dips, a fraction of movement. It's enough for Sylvain. "Good," he says. "Had us worried there, buddy."

"Us," Felix says. His voice is still hoarse.

"Me, Ingrid, Annette, the professor, you name it. You were seriously out—"

Felix tenses again.

"—cold," Sylvain finishes. 

His tongue is heavy and clumsy. Everything seems to be wrapped in gauze, at a layer's remove. "Time," he manages to say.

"Just past sunset." A beat, before Sylvain says, "Dimitri's fine. Nothing that couldn't be fixed with a quick heal."

Felix grunts. It's supposed to sound disgusted. 

"Ingrid's lying in wait to grill you. Pretty sure the professor's right behind her. Just so you're ready." Felix looks toward the door. Sylvain follows his eyes. "Not that literally."

Sylvain's smiling at him, a little lopsided. Felix can see it in his face, the relief and the worry, fighting for ascendance. He's so still otherwise. No restless gestures, no distraction. The smile fades, and it's just Sylvain watching him, like he can't risk looking away.

Felix says, "You think I should talk about it."

"Felix," Sylvain says. "You don't have to talk about a single fucking thing." 

In the shade of twilight, Sylvain is shadowed, too. Just the contours—hair ruddy against the dark, the rough outlines of his nose, his jaw. The terrible sincerity.

The infirmary is hushed. A student's voice, light-hearted, floats up through the open window. In the dimness, Sylvain's eyes shine like a beacon.

Felix says, "I've been having this dream."

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes when you're going through the shit no one can fix it for you. but maybe they can listen.
> 
> find me on twitter [@matchedpoint](http://twitter.com/matchedpoint)


End file.
